Ellen Rae Stocks Thiel died peacefully at home in Boulder surrounded by her daughters and youngest granddaughter, Ivy, as they sang her favorite song, “You Are my Sunshine.”
As a member of the community of Boulder, Ellen Rae was involved in many volunteer activities. She was instrumental in the building of the new Boulder Community library and in 2012 won the statewide Montana Friend of the Library award. The City of Boulder declared an Ellen Rae Day in her honor.
And along with her close friends Shirley Rogers and Nancy Alley, she started the Heritage Center, which is both a museum and a genealogy research center. In 2010 they received the Serve Montana Award, and in 2018 the center was named the Montana Innovative Business of the Year. She dedicated weeks, months, and years to genealogy research, producing 70-plus research files, 3-ring binders and self-published family history books that have enriched many lives.
But all that is not her legacy. Her greatest legacy is family and love. Ellen Rae believed that all people deserve respect and acceptance. One of the things she taught her children was: we are richest in the things that matter most, family and friends.
Ellen Rae was born to Dorothy “Rose” Wenger Stocks and Wayne Harvey Stocks on May 27, 1939, in the Dillon Hospital. She was the first of four daughters who filled the Stocks family home in Jackson, Montana, in the beautiful Big Hole valley. She was fiercely protective of her sisters and the four were frequently spoken of as the Stocks sisters from the Big Hole. They remained her best friends throughout her life. As the sisters became adults, they made many “Swisster” trips to various places in Montana, where they shared the joy of their sisterhood with locals who were lucky enough to meet them. In 2009 she traveled with her daughters, sisters and two nieces to Switzerland where the Wenger side of the family hailed from.
Ellen Rae attended the two-room elementary school in Jackson. The high school was 50 miles away in Dillon, and there were no school buses in those years, so for the first time she was separated from her family. She boarded with family in Dillon and was very homesick. She had many cousins there, however, and she made friends easily. She graduated from Beaverhead High School in 1957.
After high school she attended Western Montana College and when asked what her major she replied, “finding a husband!” While visiting a friend, Ellen Rae saw a picture of a man dressed in his Marine uniform. “Is that your brother?” she asked. The answer was yes. His name was Jack Louis Thiel, Jr. and one day in 1958, after returning from the Korean War, they met. Their song was “The Little Blue Man,” and on one date they travelled to Butte and saw the Big Bopper, Carl Perkins and other stars of their day.
Jack and Ellen Rae married on Sept. 6, 1958 in Dillon, where they made their first home in married student housing. It was while attending Western that Jack and Ellen Rae had four daughters in four year, the youngest twins. In those early years their home moved between Dillon and Jackson where the stories of parties, gatherings and friendships are legendary.
In 1970 the family made Boulder their home. Jack was a teacher and Ellen Rae started her career as a ward clerk at the Montana Developmental Center (MDC). In 1978, long before distance learning was common, she took a mail order course to become a Certified Medical Records Technician. Upon passing the course she became the Medical Records Administrator at MDC. She retired in 1999 and was awarded The Superintendent’s Merit Award for the year.
Ellen Rae was widowed in 1999. She spent her remaining years helping to build community in Boulder. She was often called the “Boulder Historian,” and enjoyed sharing Boulder’s history with everyone who would listen, including the local high school students who visited the Heritage Center. She frequently opened her home for relatives and friends who were looking for a place to stay. She never questioned their need, simply offering a home where they were accepted.
She loved her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. Ellen Rae brought great fun and joy to the simple things in life. Going on a picnic, drives around town, playing games, reading books with Grandma. She enjoyed a full life. And when death finally came, she was at her home she loved with those she cherished most, her family and friends.
She was preceded in death by her parents: Rose Wenger Stocks and Wayne Harvey Stocks; her husband Jack Louis Thiel, Jr.; and her grandson Kyle Patrick Grove. She leaves behind daughters Linda Bacon (Wes) of Wibaux; Denise Grove (Pat) of Boulder; Jackie of Boulder and Jeanie of Boulder. She also leaves grandchildren Jennifer (Chris), Patricia (Mike) Elizabeth, Carolyn (Lee), Austin (Hailey), Ivy (Rachel), Mike (Sarah), Andy (Mandy), Tony (Krista) and Rob (Mary); great grandchildren Robert, Kyle, Keaton, Malachi, Henry, Neill, Cooper, Mallory, Harrison, Arthur and Benson; and her sisters Tym Rhoades, Linda Hugulet and Judy (Allan) Brester.
Her service will be Feb. 21 at 1 p.m. at St. Catherine Catholic Church Hall at 214 South Elder Street in Boulder. Graveside services will be held in Dillon at a later date.
Instead of flowers the family asks that donations be sent to The Heritage Center, PO Box 51, Boulder, MT 59632 or the Friends of the Boulder Library, PO Box 589, Boulder, MT 59632.
